


Limits

by leafonthewind



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-01
Updated: 2014-10-01
Packaged: 2018-02-19 13:14:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2389586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leafonthewind/pseuds/leafonthewind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Jim met Jocelyn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Limits

**March 13th, 2256 - 23:12.**

The first time he meets Jocelyn isn't when Bones thinks it is.

The first time he meets her, he's drunk and it's eleven o'clock at night and the terminal chirps with an incoming call that he accepts without question, and the woman who appears on the screen scowls at the sight of him but she is _hot_ and Jim tells her so right away.

"Some good that's done me," she replies, but she's mollified by the compliment and gives him a second assessment and Jim knows he's got a foot in the door so he puts on his winning smile.

"Call the wrong number, gorgeous? Not that I'm complaining."

"I'm calling for _Leonard_." She chews off the name and almost spits it out and Jim's eyes go comically wide.

"You're _Jocelyn_." He sounds amazed and his tone brings the scowl right back onto her face. "He's not here."

Where was he? "He's out for the month, he's on the _Andores_ on a training sim."

He's slurring his words and tries to sober up but it isn't working well and Jocelyn doesn't look pleased to find out that Leonard's off planet.

"The bank kicked back his payment," she snaps and it doesn't take a genius to put it together and Jim manages it even in his inebriated state. He can figure out exactly what's wrong.

"The 'cademy overpaid us then docked it." He knows what happened but it's hard to explain it, explain they'd been overpaid and Starfleet corrected the mistake, but not before a lot of them had overspent the money. Those with bills were now scrambling. Jocelyn's lips are pressing into a tighter and tighter line and Jim gives up on the explanation.

"Meet me for lunch." He says it suddenly, suddenly enough that she's surprised, suspicious.

"What?"

"I can sort it out - I'll cover it for him. Saturday. Meet me for lunch. Cafe Noir."

"I'm not in the area." Of course she isn't. His smile fades a little as she watches him. Very abruptly, she corrects herself. "I suppose I could make a trip. I have a cousin there."

He has no idea why she agrees but nods at the viewscreen dumbly.

"Next Saturday." She's looking slightly away now, at another screen, maybe at a calendar and typing. "We'll be there at two."

We?

"You're paying," Jocelyn adds. The screen goes blank.

~*~

**March 22nd, 2256 - 09:42.**

She doesn't know why she agreed to this.

It was an impulse, that's all. A wild impulse because she thought maybe - what?

She isn't sure.

Joanna is quiet on the seat next to her. She's almost seven and she's playing with a stuffed hippopotamus her _father_ purchased for her years ago. Its black stone nose is worn down from being rubbed over and over by tiny fingers for good luck, and its stitched yarn mouth is grubby from being "fed" a dozen different types of food in spite of Jocelyn's insistence that Henry the Hippo didn't need to eat people food to survive.

Henry the Hippo watches her with soulless black button eyes. One of the buttons is about to fall off and Jocelyn makes a mental note to stitch it back on better later, because even if she'd like to burn one of the few reminders she has left of Leonard, Joanna loves the stupid thing.

Joanna's a reminder in and of herself, anyway, and it seems like no matter how much effort she puts into it, more and more of Leonard's irritating habits show up in her mannerisms. Jocelyn is frankly baffled by it, because they haven't seen each other in going on two years.

Maybe, she admits grudgingly to herself as she watches the scenery pass them by, it's less that they're appearing and more that she's looking for them. She doesn't know whether that's a good or a bad thing.

"Henry's tired," Joanna sighs and slumps down low in her seat.

Jocelyn knows better than to use the word 'nap'. "Maybe Henry would like to close his eyes for a little and pretend something."

Joanna scrunches her eyes up tightly, the hippo pulled up to her face in a hug and Jocelyn watches both of them.

Two reminders of Leonard she can't get rid of, and she's sitting in a train, going to meet a third.

She doesn't know what's wrong with her.

~*~

**March 22nd, 2256 - 13:23.**

He's charming.

He claims he's Leonard's best friend and it's easy to see that, it's easy for her to see why anyone would have warmed up to him even though she can't imagine two less likely friends. He reminds her of sunshine somehow, that ethereal brightness and warmth that you couldn't quite touch and you couldn't capture if you wanted to - it was just _there_ , surrounding you whether you liked it or not.

He gets them a table, draws up her chair with a show of flair that's just grandiose enough to take the seriousness out of it but not so much that it takes away from the meaning of the gesture. He flirts with the waitress and Jocelyn can tell it doesn't mean anything, but it's going to get them excellent service.

Joanna _loves_ him.

He calls her "Jojo" and won't hear her squealed protests that that is not her name, and he befriends Henry who immediately takes a huge shine to him (there's a scary moment where Joanna fears Henry isn't going to come back to her but he does, hopping across the table under Jim's hand to nuzzle at her throat), and he teaches her how to balance a spoon on her nose whenever Jocelyn "isn't looking" and then looks like a kicked puppy when he's "caught," ashamed and contrite.

She has to remind herself this is her ex's best friend and he's off-limits.

It feels good to flirt though and she lets herself relax, just a little, over drinks while they wait for the food to come. She hasn't done much of _that_ after all, not as a single working mother with a child, hell no. Most of _those_ doors are closed to her, and maybe things with this kid (because he really is young, Jocelyn can see it now as she studies him from across the table, watching him tell Joanna a children's story - invented or from memory, she can't say - about a bumbling bee who got lost in a magical forest) aren't going anywhere but that doesn't mean she can't enjoy the conversation a little, right? It's _flattering_ to be hit on by someone who so clearly could have anyone he wanted, flattering to be given his undivided attention.

Jim Kirk, she realizes then, is dangerous.

She shouldn't have come.

For all the efforts she's made at not being hurt, here she is, playing with Leonard's most dangerous toy, and Jocelyn isn't sure exactly how that's going to hurt her but she knows it will. She sees that clearly in the bright of his smile, the laughter of his eyes.

She doesn't want to be hurt, and that's what this had all been about, hadn't it? She doesn't hate Leonard - not exactly, not definitely. Maybe when she was Joanna's age she might have, back when the world was black and white, but now she is an adult and she has just under a decade of her life that she wishes she could do over, but if she did she wouldn't have Joanna, and it's complicated, and she just doesn't want to be hurt any more by it.

The kid laughing across the table with her child is going to hurt someone, and badly.

Jocelyn finds herself grateful that Leonard is a doctor and Jim's friend, because maybe that means he'll be there to save them.

~*~

**_June 23rd, 2257 - 12:32._ **

The first time he meets Jocelyn isn't when Bones thinks it is.

They meet for lunch and Joanna isn't there, and Jocelyn shakes his hand as he introduces himself to her because he never told Bones that they'd already met, that he'd covered his child support payment for that month, that he still talked with her sometimes - monthly emails, video chats, nothing inappropriate but he kept in touch. At first it started out just to verify the payment went through, and then he called asking if Joanna got Henry's brother Harry in the mail and then there was another one and another one and now it was too late to tell him, wasn't it?

Because now Jocelyn and Jim are friends, in a way, and it didn't happen through Bones and she was right that he was going to hurt someone badly, and maybe she knows that because she shakes his hand back and introduces herself.

"Jim Kirk," he says softly.

"Jocelyn Darnell."


End file.
